It is in numberless instances happier to have a false opinion which we believe true, than a true one of which we doubt.

It has been said that the beauties of the mind are valuable because they are more lasting than those of the body; but I do not remember to have heard it said that the beauties of the mind are valuable because they make those of the body more lasting.

Love will sacrifice more to others than friendship, but then it exacts more from them.

Politics is the food of sense exposed to the hunger of folly.

Man is said to be a rational creature; but should it not rather be said, that man is a creature capable of being rational, as we say a parrot is a creature capable of speech?

There are sometimes beauties in a character which would never have appeared but for a defect, and defects which would never have appeared but for a beauty.

There is scarce any passion so heartily decried by moralists and satirists, as AMBITION; and yet, methinks, ambition is not a vice but in a vicious mind: in a virtuous mind it is a virtue, and will be found to take its color from the character in which it is mixed. Ambition is a desire of superiority; and a man may become superior, either by making others less or himself greater.